How Much Punishment Is Deserved? Two Alternatives to Proportionality

Metz, Thaddeus; Metz, Mika’il

How Much Punishment Is Deserved? Two Alternatives to Proportionality

Journal Article

2022-03-03

Journal Title

Philosophies

Link to Journal

https://www.mdpi.com/journal/bioengineering

Department

Department of Philosophy

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Abstract

When it comes to the question of how much the state ought to punish a given offender, the standard understanding of the desert theory for centuries has been that it should give him a penalty proportionate to his offense, that is, an amount of punishment that fits the severity of his crime. In this article, we maintain that a desert theorist is not conceptually or otherwise required to hold a proportionality requirement. We show that there is logical space for at least two other, non-proportionate ways of meting out deserved penalties, and we also argue that they have important advantages relative to the dominant, proportionality approach.

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